


come on love, show me heart

by tosca1390



Category: Psy-Changeling - Nalini Singh
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-17
Updated: 2014-01-17
Packaged: 2018-01-09 02:00:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1140112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tosca1390/pseuds/tosca1390
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>For someone seen as so thoughtful and caring towards others, able to see mated pairs before those within them even see it themselves, she really has a supreme blind spot for herself and her own feelings.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	come on love, show me heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [magisterequitum](https://archiveofourown.org/users/magisterequitum/gifts).



> An _Emma_ -inspired fic, as opposed to a straightforward AU. #whoops
> 
> Written for the [Winter Book Ficathon](http://empressearwig.livejournal.com/654297.html) for Jordan.

*

Marlee is no coward. She thinks being a coward in the Lauren family is genetically impossible, considering. 

So, when she takes to the woods beyond the White Zone, sinking into the spring growth and the verdant leafy trees, she isn’t _hiding_. She’s clearing her head. She’s taking a stroll on her day off from den responsibilities. She’s - 

She’s hiding. A little. 

Only because she can’t quite face anyone yet, after this strange epiphany of hers. She can’t face Ben, and she can’t face Sienna or her family, or anyone in the den, and she can barely face herself, really. For someone seen as so thoughtful and caring towards others, able to see mated pairs before those within them even see it themselves, she really has a supreme blind spot for herself and her own feelings. Her Psy mind clicks and whirrs at a high rate, processing signs such as music notes and tone and analysis of human versus changeling literature over the last two centuries; but her own emotions are still a strange labyrinth to navigate. 

She has failed at knowing herself quite spectacularly. 

A branch snaps in front of her. She looks up, startled from her thoughts. 

_Shit._

“Hi there,” Ben says with a grin, tall and broad and handsome in the spring sunshine. He steps towards her, hands stuck in his jeans pockets. 

Marlee blinks, watching the curl of his dark hair along the nape of his neck. His eyes blink a lazy amber at her. She thinks she can see the wolf lurking there. Hunting her. 

_Shit_. 

Words spring to the tip of her tongue, words of love and affection deeper than the friendship that has sustained and connected the both of them for years. Eighteen years of friendship, and now she ruins it with love. A love she is sure cannot be returned. 

“What are you doing out here?” she asks at last, feigning ease. 

His gaze narrows. “Looking for you.”

“Why?”

Ben stops in front of her, just inches away. Her fingertips curl with the urge to reach out and touch the line of his jaw, the tanned olive of his skin, the coarse silk of his hair. 

“Do I need a reason?” he jokes, eyes dark and serious. 

Panic rises in her belly. The hair on the nape of her neck rises. She is twenty-five years old, she is not a young silly girl any longer, and she shouldn’t feel like a blushing child in front of her best and oldest friend. 

She shouldn’t, but she does. 

“Actually, I just wanted to settle that you’re a terrible matchmaker.”

“It’s not my fault Toby’s stubborn,” she mutters, thinking of the impossible task its been to find a woman well-suited to her cousin. Not from a lack of Marlee’s tenacious efforts, though.

Ben grins. “Three strikes and you’re out, Marlee-Barlee. Can we lay this hobby to rest?” he teases, reaching out to touch her cheek. 

In her emotional panic, she flinches away. Immediately his jaw tenses, the line of his mouth thins. 

“Okay then,” he says evenly, stepping away. 

Fuck - shit - all the curse words she so rarely makes use of come right to the forefront of her mind as he shrugs and turns away, back towards the White Zone and the den. This is Ben - this is her best friend, and she has hurt him. She can bear her own emotional torment, but his is another story. 

“Ben, wait,” she calls, hurrying after him. Her strawberry-blonde curls shake with the motion, catching the dappled light from between the trees. 

She reaches out to touch his wrist, stopping him. Under her fingertips his skin is so warm, always warm. He halts and she nearly barrels into him, her shoulder rocking against his back. 

“I’m sorry,” she says, wrapping her fingers around his wrist. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. You want to talk to me, I’ll listen.”

He meets her gaze, and she’s startled at how starkly tortured the lines of his face are. The set of his jaw is pained, the turn of his mouth downwards. 

“Because we’re friends,” he grounds out. 

Wetting her lips, she shifts her fingers on his wrist, the tips just resting at his rapid pulse. “Best friends,” she clarifies. 

Gritting his teeth, he looks down at the ground for a moment. “That’s all you want us to be.”

A fist wraps around her heart and squeezes. “Well, I don’t want to be less.”

He shakes his head, an exasperated sigh leaving his mouth. “I can’t - I can’t do this anymore, Marlee.”

That fist around her heart tugs, all but ripping it from her chest. Here is the abandonment she always feared, the reason she has avoided love in its more serious permutations so seriously; she is always left behind. It must be Sakura, she thinks even as she drops her hand from his wrist. Sakura, so strong and fierce and beautiful in human and wolf form, a child fully of the den like Ben is.

It is Ben that takes her hand now, his strong fingers wrapping around hers. “I can’t pretend that your friendship is enough.”

His words slice right through her, cutting her to the quick. “Please, stop,” she whispers, tears burning behind her eyes. She can’t bear to look at him. 

“No, I can’t. I can’t, because - Marlee, I can’t just be your friend anymore. It’s not _enough_ ,” he says, voice low and achingly.

A small burst of something lovely and new blooms in her middle. She blinks and lifts her eyes to him. He is standing so close, she can feel his warm breath on her skin. His eyes glow amber with both sides of him, wolf and man. A shiver runs over her skin, raising goosebumps over the flesh. 

His other hand rises to touch the curls at her shoulders, twining his fingers there. It is a touch she knows well, and yet it feels utterly different here in the tree-dappled sunlight. 

“I’ve always been bad with words,” he says, words warm and rough as they drift over her skin. He pulls her closer until she is brushing right against his chest. Her hand rises to rest on his chest, right at his heart, and he shudders with the touch. “I told you when I was six that you were mine and I was yours, and you didn’t speak to me for weeks. And so - I’ve been trying - “

All the breath has left her. She can’t do anything but watch him, watch with wide watery eyes as his face flushes, as his mouth struggles with words. 

“Shit, I’m really bad at this,” he says ruefully, blinking dark lashes at her apologetically.The hand in her hair shifts to lay itself to the curve of her throat. She leans into the touch on instinct deeper than bone. His thumb rests on the leaping pulse there. 

“I think if I didn’t love you so much, I could talk about it better,” he says at last. 

Her bones seems to go right to jelly. She sways into him for a moment, grasping at the hand wrapped around hers. 

“Really?” she breathes, a flush warming her cheeks. 

He smiles then, a shy soft curve she remembers from childhood. “It’s always been you, Marlee.”

Unable to speak, she rises up on her toes and kisses him, kisses him until she cannot breathe. His hand holds her steady as she leans against the tall broad length of him, tastes him under her tongue and teeth. In the sunlight it all slides into place, and she wonders how she could have ignored this feeling of surety and rightness for so long. 

“Took you too damn long,” he mutters against her mouth good-naturedly. 

She laughs and kisses him again, wraps her arm around his neck and presses close enough to sink into him and all his warmth. Everything is finally enough. Toby will figure it out eventually. 

*


End file.
